ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -The Canterbury Tales is written in Middle English, which bears a close visual resemblance to the English written and spoken today. In contrast, Old English (the language of Beowulf, for example) can be read only in modern translation or by students of Old English.

Detailed explanation-2: -Geoffrey Chaucer is considered one of the first great English poets. He is the author of such works as The Parlement of Foules, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Canterbury Tales. Humorous and profound, his writings show him to be an acute observer of his time with a deft command of many literary genres.

Detailed explanation-3: -The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories built around a frame tale, a common and already long established genre in this period. Chaucer’s Tales differs from most other story “collections” in this genre chiefly in its intense variation. Most story collections focused on a theme, usually a religious one.

Detailed explanation-4: -Chaucer wrote during the final decades of the fourteenth century; hence, his language belongs to the later Middle English period. An important feature of the division between the Middle and the Early Modern periods was the emergence of a standard written variety of English.